Stakeholder pressure and CSR adoption: The mediating role of organizational culture for Chinese companies

Abstract

This empirical study investigates the driving factors in the adoption of corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices by Chinese firms. Following the stakeholder theory, the hypothesis of this study is that stakeholder pressures positively impact Chinese firms’ adoption of CSR practices. Studies on the relationship between stakeholder pressure and CSR practices have been inconclusive. In order to identify the missing links amid those inconclusive results, this study examines the mediating role of CSR-oriented organizational culture in the relationship between stakeholder pressure and the adoption of CSR practices. The empirical findings provide strong evidence that a CSR-oriented organizational culture has a fully mediating role on the relationship between stakeholder pressure and the adoption of CSR practices. These results suggest that Chinese companies should promote a well-established CSR-oriented culture within a CSR paradigm shift more effectively and thus gain a sustainable competitive advantage over their competitors.

Keywords:

• Organizational culture
• CSR practices
• Stakeholder pressure
• Mediating effect
• Structural equation modeling (SEM)
• China

Acknowledgements

We thank three anonymous referees for the very useful suggestions on an earlier draft of this paper. We also thank the financial support provided by the Major Project of National Social Science Foundation, China (12&ZD213), the China Postdoctoral Foundation (2014M551849), and the start-up research fund of JUFE (61152012).